Volume 15, Number 6
 

A chance for end-of-life care to become mainstream

Palliative care has been associated with several euphemisms over the years. End-of-life care (EOLC) is one of these. It has the merit of honesty and does not seek to obscure the true nature of the activity. Earlier this year, the Department of Health published its long-awaited End of Life Care Strategy, which had been delayed to coincide with Lord Darzi’s NHS Next Stage Review. These policy documents have laid out the UK’s vision for investment in healthcare for the next few years. It is significant that EOLC has been included as one of the main strands of this policy.

Book review: Euthanasia and law in Europe

Ten years after the publication of Euthanasia and law in the Netherlands by John Griffiths, Alex Bood and Heleen Weyers (the Netherlands: Amsterdam University Press, 1998), and six years after the country became the first in the world to legalise euthanasia, comes this latest book looking at the situation in Europe.

Can palliative sedation be a solution when a patient requests active euthanasia?

Lukas Radbruch, Norbert Krumm and Frank Elsner look at two instances in which a patient wanting a hastened death was offered palliative sedation. They consider the difference in outcome between the two cases and what can be learned from them

Children’s needs: key figures from the Veneto region, Italy

Franca Benini, Anna Ferrante, Laura Visonà Dalla Pozza, Manuela Trapanotto and Paola Facchin have developed an original method to evaluate the number of children suffering from life-limiting and life-threatening illness

Complementary medicine can benefit palliative care – part 2

In the second part of their article looking at the effects of complementary and integrative medicine on palliative care patients with cancer, Moshe Frenkel and Vaishali Shah review their role in helping to alleviate nausea, anxiety, depression and insomnia

Dutch GPs get 24-hour telephone advice on how to treat nausea and vomiting

Florien van Heest, Ilora Finlay, Ineke van der Ven, Renée Otter and Betty Meyboom-de Jong look at how a 24-hour specialist advisory service has helped GPs in the Netherlands to treat patients suffering from nausea and vomiting at home

End-of-life care in the UK: a wider picture of service provision and initiatives

The UK mix of health and social services often fails dying patients. Scott A Murray, Kirsty Boyd, Jo Hockley and Aziz Sheikh consider the challenges and opportunities of providing quality end-of-life care in primary care, care homes, hospitals and hospices

Palliative care patients: what services do they really want?

Sophie Barrow and Patrick Blossfeldt present the results of an audit to determine the expectations and level of satisfaction of patients using a palliative care service in Norfolk

Re-emphasising the social side: a new model of care

The ‘social’ aspect of psychosocial care is often sidelined as ‘practical help’. Felicity Hearn, Eve Jackman, Trudy Lake, Sarah Popplestone-Helm and Annie Young contribute to the debate by proposing a new, four-level model of social care assessment and support

Symptom control for patients dying with advanced CKD

There is increasing recognition that patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) have a high burden of symptoms. Claire Douglas, Fliss Murtagh and John Ellershaw consider the improvements required in end-of-life care

The case study masterclass: Case 40 answers. A lung cancer patient with caring responsibilities making hospitalisation difficult

You are a qualified community nurse and have been asked to visit Mrs Weir, known as Meg, who was diagnosed with lung cancer three months previously. She has been attending the hospital cancer centre for investigations and, following a confirmed diagnosis of lung cancer, has been attending for chemotherapy treatment. Since her diagnosis, Mrs Weir has not required any input from the community staff. Her son, who lives a few hundred miles away, has spoken to her GP by phone, as he is concerned and believes that she is more unwell than she says. The GP has requested that you visit her to assess the situation.

The case study masterclass: Case 41. A patient with advanced oesophageal malignancy who requires tracheal stenting

Grace, a 62-year-old retired publisher, was admitted to the hospice for symptom control. Over the last six weeks, she had developed increasing difficulty in breathing and also in speaking and swallowing. She had a history of oesophageal carcinoma, having presented 18 months earlier with difficulty in swallowing, particularly solid foods.